by Melissa
Hell’s Kitchen Episode 5 Quick Hits
August 11, 2009 in FOX, Hell's Kitchen, Reality TV, TV, TV News by Melissa
Hey all I can’t believe we are at the fifth episode of Hell’s Kitchen already. It seems like this season is just flying by. And now that some of the dead weights are being cut we might actually get some good cooking in this episode, right?
-Tek is deservedly annoyed at almost being sent home, since she only made one bad mistake last week and was solid up until.
-Hopefully Dave is better at cooking with one arm than he is at opening packages with one arm…
-As we found out in the preview last week, the contestants are catering a welcome home celebration for a returning Iraq War veteran named Otis James. I never understand why people agree to have their parties catered by this show (last year I know they had a Bar Mitzvah and there was a Sweet 16 at one point too). Sure you get to be on TV and all but you know the food is going to be subpar at best.
-Like with all the party catering episodes the challenge is for each team to create a menu for the event. Otis’ wife Latasha will decide which food is the best, and if previous seasons are any indication it will come down to the last dish to determine who wins the challenge.
-Robert and Suzanne are chosen as team leaders, aka the people who must tell their teammates what food Otis likes. Of course Chef picks the loudest, most ill-tempered members of each team to do this in order to heighten the drama.
-Robert is way too confident for someone who should have been on the chopping block last week.
-Kevin and Robert are now fully recovered from last week’s altercation, as Kevin compliments Robert on how he directed the team. I have to admit, Kevin is right. The blue team seems well organized and focused, and they are including lots of seafood and potato like Otis wants. Everyone is collaborating on ideas and working as a team.
-Suzanne of course takes a dictator approach, telling everyone to make the dishes she wants. She also doesn’t know what type of sauce the Jameses like on their steak, which is kind of an important piece of information.
-When Suzanne finally does ask the team if they like the menu, there are only five minutes left on the clock. It does sound like she was asking this kind of rhetorically, but she should have asked it for real at the start of the task.
-First up is red team’s Caesar salad with prawns versus blue team’s spicy bouillabaisse. I have to admit the salad looks really good. Wow I’m surprised the red team wins round one, even after LaTasha liked both dishes. From her reaction I thought she like the blue team’s dish a bit more but I guess not. But like I said it will come down to the last dish anyway so it won’t matter.
-Which of course means the blue team should win round 2. They are up against red team’s bacon-wrapped fillet with shrimp. Dang I’m getting hungry now. Blue team’s catfish and macaroni and cheese looks gross, but of course LaTasha likes it along with the fillet. So she’s either not a picky eater or the cooks are pretty competent this year. But as I figured blue team wins, so it’s down to the last dish.
-Of course Suzanne and Robert introduce the final dishes. So if one of them stinks, the leaders will get the blame. The dish gets a thumbs up from LaTasha and Suzanna already looks confident, which means the red team will probably lose. They deserve to lose anyway because of her poor leadership style.
-I distinctly remember LaTasha saying her husband loves grilled lobster tail, so why in the world did Suzanne broil it instead? That will probably cost her team the challenge. But I bet we are going to commercial before we find out who wins. Yep we are…
-As I figured the blue team wins. The only bad thing is now we will have to deal with Robert gloating for the next 10 minutes or so. At least Suzanne will get some well-deserved criticism from her teammates.
-Is Robert too big to get into a plane and be a fighter pilot? I’m just wondering since he couldn’t do a bunch of the rewards last year because of weight issues.
-Though the James family is probably better off that the women are decorating for the party and not the men…
-I can’t believe Suzanne never told her team to cook soul food when LaTasha specified that was the type of food she wanted. I’m guessing she also didn’t tell her team to grill the lobster either. Suzanne though refuses to admit she was wrong- she gets more obnoxious every week.
-Tennille has a right to be mad at Suzanne for shooting down Tennille’s jambalaya idea in the kitchen. I just hope she gets her anger out at the punishment and doesn’t carry it over to service.
-That scene with the men coming out of Hell’s Kitchen wearing pilot costumes is awesome!
-Hey a Mrs. Ramsay sighting! I guess even Chef Ramsay knows his limits- he does the cooking and leads the decorating to his wife. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before but she is quite attractive.
-Even I’m getting confused listening to Mrs. Ramsay’s instructions. She is very detail-oriented like her husband is. I guess that makes them a perfect match.
-Good to see Robert actually did participate in the reward. And also good to see no blue team members were injured in this reward.
-Tek doing a Chef Ramsay on helium imitation was hilarious!
-The guys are a bit too confident heading into dinner service. Could that be foreshadowing a bad service for the men?
-The men do have the early advantage by knowing all the dishes on the menu already. But they are really being unfair by not giving the girls all the information about their dishes. Gameplay is one thing but that seems like a low blow to me.
-It would be ironic if the red team won despite not knowing the entire menu. Which I think is going to happen. The show is setting it up to make it look like the blue team will win in a knockout, which usually means the blue team is going to fail miserably.
-Otis looks like he knows something is up when he walks into the dark restaurant. I think I would be kind of suspicious too if that happened to me.
-Aw Chef invited Otis’ mom, whom he hasn’t seen in years. Even with that tough exterior you can tell Chef is a softie at heart. He always does sweet things like this when Hell’s Kitchen caters a party.
-Blue team gets to cook for Otis as a reward for winning the challenge. But if they mess up the food at his table it will loom larger than if they mess up at any other table. So this reward could end up being more of a curse.
-Red team keeps harping on how they haven’t won a service, but really the first service was a tie and the second no one on their team went home because of the Joseph fiasco, so really they’ve only lost two and the second didn’t really count.
-So much for Sabrina building on her strong showing last week. While it does seem like Chef was rushing her with the mushrooms (which may have caused her to send up a cold dish), she should have timed it better so all three were ready at the same time.
-Hey Van actually worked well with Andy as they quickly finish the appetizers. Maybe there’s hope for Van after all..
-Uh oh. Slow Jim is on the grill….
-Tough break for Jim getting nine steak orders at once and having to remember how each one must be cooked. I realize that is part of his job but still it must be hard to keep track of which steaks are supposed to be well done and which are supposed to be medium rare.
-Good to see Kevin wanting to bail out Jim on the steaks, but he seems to be doing it more because he is sure Jim will fail and wants to be the hero than because he really wants to help.
-Hasn’t Jim ever watched this show before?? ALWAYS answer Chef when he asks how long a dish has left to cook.
-Tek is doing the steak for the women. I REALLY hope she does well or she’ll be on the chopping block for sure.
-I’ve never heard of a steak being “blue” before but I’m guessing that’s bad. And I have a feeling Tek is in big trouble tonight.
-The red team is not helping matters by crowding around Tek at her station. I understand wanting to help her but it would be better if one person did, not five.
-Ariel says the steak should be marked on the grill and finished in the oven. I’ve never heard that, but I wonder why Ariel said that in the confessional and not to her teammate during service.
-Why is Chef embarrassed that Tek burnt a few steaks that didn’t even leave the kitchen? He has served much worse to customers and not been embarrassed then…
-Apparently Tennille knew that the steaks should be finished in the oven also. She claims Tek should have listened to her but the producers never show Tennille telling Tek this vital piece of information. I’m guessing this did happen but was edited out but you never know with these shows…
-Again the red team all crowds around Tek at once. Their problem is they don’t have a really vocal leader that commands the respect of the team. Suzanne is a leader but the team doesn’t seem to respect her because of her bossiness and arrogance. Ariel should step up more as a leader but seems like more of the reserved type, a trait that could haunt her towards the end of the competition. Kevin of the blue team is overbearing but the team does seems to respect his authority.
-Blue team has to win this service, right? Red team hasn’t even served one entree yet and blue team is almost done.
-Now Tek finally has the steaks going but in all the fuss she forgot about the burgers. I like Tek but she has to go home tonight. She’s been the worst player in both kitchens and is single-handidly preventing her team from serving entrees. The bad thing is it seems like she is really competent, but she just is crumbling under the pressure from Chef her teammates (who are only making things worse by pressuring and crowding her rather than working with her to get the steaks done).
-I agree with Dave- Jim is doing a good job on steaks for the men. While Chef does tell Jim how to tell if the steak is done, he seems to do it nicely, like he is trying to give Jim suggestions rather than criticize him. When that’s the most critical Chef is being in the blue kitchen you know they are doing well.
-It’s hard to tell if Chef is giving Kevin too much credit for the steaks without really seeing how much each person is doing on the station. It does seem like Jim got short-changed a bit though in the compliments department.
- Amazing. The blue team is done with entrees and the red team hasn’t served a single one. This is one of the most lopsided dinner services I’ve ever seen.
-Great now that Tek gets her steaks out Amanda messes up on the lobster part of the dish. It sounds like she was saying she was trying to help out Tek so she forgot about her own station but she should have put her station first. So now two of my three favorite women will be up on the chopping block, though I can’t imagine anyone but Tek going home.
-If Chef shuts down dinner service, what happens to all those guests in the red kitchen? Will the blue team just give them their food or will they have to go hungry? This is why I never understand why people sign up to having parties hosted by this show.
-Indeed Chef does have the blue team finish the entrees for the red team. Or I guess I should say that they do all of the entrees since the red team still hasn’t gotten one out. I think I have seen this one other time on Hell’s Kitchen and as Tennille says, it really just add insult to injury.
-Jim says the red kitchen looks like “a hand grenade went off in a cow’s [butt]” because of all the burnt meat laying around! Ha! Though I must be tired or something since even Robert’s gloating to the camera amuses me.
-The fact that Chef asked Kevin to do desserts for the men alone while the rest of the team cleaned up the “mess” in the red kitchen shows that Chef really trusts Kevin. I think he will go far in this competition, especially since Chef likes contestants with attitude if they can back it up like Kevin can. He reminds me a bit of Rock from season 3.
-It must be a bad night when Ariel is calling her teammates “incompetent”. Though she seems reluctant to do so, which makes me admire her even more. But I still think she needs to be more of a leader if she is going to pass Kevin in Chef Ramsay’s eyes.
-Of course when she says “incompetent” the camera shows shots of Tek, Amanda, and Suzanne. I’m a bit surprised they showed Suzanne- she showed she was a poor listener in the challenge but so far she seems to be a decent cook.
-Lucky for Otis he was in the blue kitchen tonight and not the red or his night would have been much different.
-No best of the worst tonight either. I’m not surprised since I couldn’t figure out who Chef could have picked for this “honor”.
-Obviously it will be some combo of Amanda, Tek, and Suzanne going up for elimination. Tek is a lock of course. I hope they send up Suzanne because of her poor listening skills and overall overbearingness but tonight Amanda was worse. Though either way it won’t matter since Chef HAS to send Tek home after her complete meltdown on the meat.
-Suzanne says it comes down to who can cook and who can’t, but Tek chimes back that she can cook, which I agree with. She claims she didn’t know she was only supposed to use the grill for marking, which apparently is common knowledge in the cooking world since everyone on her team knows it but her. Again I ask- why didn’t her teammates tell her this earlier? Tennille insists she did tell Tek this, which she very well might have, but if that’s so I wonder why it wasn’t shown in the episode.
-Ariel is still feisty, saying that Amanda “shuts down” during service. I guess that means Amanda sometimes has a few mental lapses, which she does, but she was nowhere near as bad as Tek tonight.
-I don’t like Tennille at all, but she has a right to be mad at Tek for not listening to her about cooking the steaks since Tennille runs a steakhouse (I’m starting to think Tennille did say this but we just didn’t see it). She also has a right to be mad at Sabrina for wanting her on the chopping block when she has had two solid services in a row. But like I said it shouldn’t matter since Tek is likely going home anyway.
-Only ten minutes left- must be a quick elimination. Not a good sign for Tek…
-Hmm Chef asks Tennille to announce the nominees for elimination. He always asks people who he thinks are safe to do this. I guess he doesn’t think Tennille should be up for elimination this week either.
-Tek is the first nominee, as expected. Now it will get interesting. Wow Tennille is the second nominee! I’m shocked and so is Chef. Though if Chef doesn’t agree with the nominees he often just picks his own so he might just replace Tennille with Amanda anyway.
-It shows the lack of leadership on this team that they can’t even come to a consensus on their two nominees.
-Why is Chef even thinking about Amanda versus Tennille? It doesn’t matter anyway since Tek was by far the worst tonight.
-I’m not surprised Chef has Amanda step forward with Tennille and Tek. Though he probably realizes it doesn’t matter who he chooses between her and Tennille anyway. Though I am glad to see the red team think Amanda is better than Tennille since I like Amanda’s attutide way more than I like Tennille’s.
-While I don’t like the way she said it to Chef, I agree with Tennille that she is improving in the kitchen. Then again with the way she started she couldn’t have gotten much worse.
-Her clear show of emotion while being up on the block should endear her to Chef. It does, as she is rightly sent back in line with her team.
-While I’m sure Tek does care about her place on Hell’s Kitchen, her speech seems like a letdown after Tennille’s strong show of emotion. I think it’s just Tek’s nature to not overly show her emotions but it could be the final dagger for her here.
-Even Amanda is in tears, so she too is showing more emotion than Tek is. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Tek loves to cook and really wants to stay in Hell’s Kitchen, and I don’t fault her for the lack of emotion. But I think Chef is getting the impression Tek doesn’t want to be there, which is always the kiss of death for a contestant on any reality show.
-Chef seems to think Amanda is “done”. I guess he means that this competition is too much for her. Well that’s one way to interpret the tears but to me they show how much she wants this. I think he might be saying that to her just to get her to show her passion and desire to stay. Or to make an anticlimactic elimination a bit more exciting.
-Indeed I think the latter may be the case, as Tek is indeed sent packing. There really was no other choice tonight.
-I do feel bad for Tek though. Like I said before I think she has cooking skills she just couldn’t handle all those orders at once and got flustered. Instead of helping her like Kevin did with Jim, her teammates just crowded around her and got frustrated, making things worse. If someone on the red team had stepped up like Kevin had I don’t think Tek would have been nearly as bad. I figured she was going to be gone soon anyway since she almost went home last week but it is still sad to see her go.
-Glad to see Tek has a positive yet determined attitude after her elimination.
-Tennille also seems to be taking her trip on the chopping block just as well (note the sarcasm).
-Luckily Tennille pulls a Joseph and fights back against Chef next week. Hopefully he’ll do what he did to Joseph and send her packing immediately. And Robert goes back to the hospital- wonder if he’ll have to drop out again?? And I wonder if that will make Chef regret his decision to bring him back instead of Ji?
So what are your thoughts on tonight’s show? Did you think a stronger leader would have saved Tek from disaster? Who do you think could/should step up? How long with the blue team’s dominance continue? Post your comments below.
